"Ulysses" is a poem written by Alfred, Lord Tennyson, first published in Poems in (1842). The 1842 Poems was the second volume he released by that name, after the 1833 edition that received unfavorable reviews and discouraged him from continuing to write poetry for nearly ten years. The 1842 Poems was written in the aftermath of the death of his close friend, Arthur Henry Hallam (with whom he may have been in a homosexual relationship), while he was also working on "In Memoriam", which would take him 17 years to complete, and was finally published in 1850 (Literature Network). Hallam and Tennyson were members of a philosophical society called the Apostles (Carlone), and Hallam was engaged to be married to Tennyson's sister Emily, when he died of illness in 1822. Tennyson named his first son after Hallam (Everett "Chronology"). Some of Tennyson's best poetry was written about Hallam's death, including "Ulysses", "In Memoriam", "The Passing of Arthur", and "Tithonus" (Everett).
The 1842 Poems' success made Tennyson extremely well-known and popular. In 1845 he received a Civil List pension of £200 a year, and in 1850 he was established as Poet Laureate, succeeding Wordsworth, and establishing him as the preeminent poet of the Victorian era (Literature Network).
Ulysses is a 70 line poem comprised of three blank verse (unrhyming iambic pentameter) stanzas. It is a dramatic monologue from the point of view of the Greek mythological hero Odysseus/Ulysses, taken from the 26th Canto of Dante's Inferno where Ulysses is in the Limbo of the Deceivers:
"Neither fondness for my son nor reverence for my aged sire nor the due love which ought to have gladdened Penelope could conquer in me the ardour which I had to become experienced in the world and in human vice and worth. I put out into the deep open sea with but one ship and with that small company which had not deserted me.... I and my companions were old and tardy when we came to that narrow pass where Hercules assigned his landmarks. 'O brothers,' I said, 'who through a hundred thousand dangers have reached the West deny not to this the brief vigil of your senses that remain, experience of the unpeopled world beyond the sun. Consider your origin, ye were not formed to live like Brutes but to follow virtue and knowledge.... Night already saw the other pole with all its stars and ours so low that it rose not from the ocean floor'" (Literature Network "Ulysses")
Of the poem, Tennyson said in 1891 "Ulysses was written soon after Arthur Hallam's death, and gave my feeling about the need of going forward, and braving the struggle of life perhaps more simply than anything in In Memoriam" (Tennyson Works, quoted McLuhan). In the poem, Ulysses says "you and I are old;/Old age hath yet his honour and his toil;/Death closes all: but something ere the end,/Some work of noble note, may yet be done" (Tennyson Ln 49-52). The poem encompasses both a yearning and a nostalgia, looking back at past accomplishments, and looking forward at the future, and appears not to contain any of the condemnation present in the original text by Dante.
The full text of Ulysses follows:
It little profits that an idle king, By this still hearth, among these barren crags, Match'd with an aged wife, I mete and dole Unequal laws unto a savage race, That hoard, and sleep, and feed, and know not me. I cannot rest from travel: I will drink Life to the lees: All times I have enjoy'd Greatly, have suffer'd greatly, both with those That loved me, and alone, on shore, and when Thro' scudding drifts the rainy Hyades Vext the dim sea: I am become a name; For always roaming with a hungry heart Much have I seen and known; cities of men And manners, climates, councils, governments, Myself not least, but honour'd of them all; And drunk delight of battle with my peers, Far on the ringing plains of windy Troy. I am a part of all that I have met; Yet all experience is an arch wherethro' Gleams that untravell'd world whose margin fades For ever and forever when I move. How dull it is to pause, to make an end, To rust unburnish'd, not to shine in use! As tho' to breathe were life! Life piled on life Were all too little, and of one to me Little remains: but every hour is saved From that eternal silence, something more, A bringer of new things; and vile it were For some three suns to store and hoard myself, And this gray spirit yearning in desire To follow knowledge like a sinking star, Beyond the utmost bound of human thought.
This is my son, mine own Telemachus, To whom I leave the sceptre and the isle,— Well-loved of me, discerning to fulfil This labour, by slow prudence to make mild A rugged people, and thro' soft degrees Subdue them to the useful and the good. Most blameless is he, centred in the sphere Of common duties, decent not to fail In offices of tenderness, and pay Meet adoration to my household gods, When I am gone. He works his work, I mine.
There lies the port; the vessel puffs her sail: There gloom the dark, broad seas. My mariners, Souls that have toil'd, and wrought, and thought with me— That ever with a frolic welcome took The thunder and the sunshine, and opposed Free hearts, free foreheads—you and I are old; Old age hath yet his honour and his toil; Death closes all: but something ere the end, Some work of noble note, may yet be done, Not unbecoming men that strove with Gods. The lights begin to twinkle from the rocks: The long day wanes: the slow moon climbs: the deep Moans round with many voices. Come, my friends, 'T is not too late to seek a newer world. Push off, and sitting well in order smite The sounding furrows; for my purpose holds To sail beyond the sunset, and the baths Of all the western stars, until I die. It may be that the gulfs will wash us down: It may be we shall touch the Happy Isles, And see the great Achilles, whom we knew. Tho' much is taken, much abides; and tho' We are not now that strength which in old days Moved earth and heaven, that which we are, we are; One equal temper of heroic hearts, Made weak by time and fate, but strong in will To strive, to seek, to find, and not to yield.
The 1842 Poems' success made Tennyson extremely well-known and popular. In 1845 he received a Civil List pension of £200 a year, and in 1850 he was established as Poet Laureate, succeeding Wordsworth, and establishing him as the preeminent poet of the Victorian era (Literature Network).
Ulysses is a 70 line poem comprised of three blank verse (unrhyming iambic pentameter) stanzas. It is a dramatic monologue from the point of view of the Greek mythological hero Odysseus/Ulysses, taken from the 26th Canto of Dante's Inferno where Ulysses is in the Limbo of the Deceivers:
"Neither fondness for my son nor reverence for my aged sire nor the due love which ought to have gladdened Penelope could conquer in me the ardour which I had to become experienced in the world and in human vice and worth. I put out into the deep open sea with but one ship and with that small company which had not deserted me.... I and my companions were old and tardy when we came to that narrow pass where Hercules assigned his landmarks. 'O brothers,' I said, 'who through a hundred thousand dangers have reached the West deny not to this the brief vigil of your senses that remain, experience of the unpeopled world beyond the sun. Consider your origin, ye were not formed to live like Brutes but to follow virtue and knowledge.... Night already saw the other pole with all its stars and ours so low that it rose not from the ocean floor'" (Literature Network "Ulysses")
Of the poem, Tennyson said in 1891 "Ulysses was written soon after Arthur Hallam's death, and gave my feeling about the need of going forward, and braving the struggle of life perhaps more simply than anything in In Memoriam" (Tennyson Works, quoted McLuhan). In the poem, Ulysses says "you and I are old;/Old age hath yet his honour and his toil;/Death closes all: but something ere the end,/Some work of noble note, may yet be done" (Tennyson Ln 49-52). The poem encompasses both a yearning and a nostalgia, looking back at past accomplishments, and looking forward at the future, and appears not to contain any of the condemnation present in the original text by Dante.
The full text of Ulysses follows:
It little profits that an idle king,
By this still hearth, among these barren crags,
Match'd with an aged wife, I mete and dole
Unequal laws unto a savage race,
That hoard, and sleep, and feed, and know not me.
I cannot rest from travel: I will drink
Life to the lees: All times I have enjoy'd
Greatly, have suffer'd greatly, both with those
That loved me, and alone, on shore, and when
Thro' scudding drifts the rainy Hyades
Vext the dim sea: I am become a name;
For always roaming with a hungry heart
Much have I seen and known; cities of men
And manners, climates, councils, governments,
Myself not least, but honour'd of them all;
And drunk delight of battle with my peers,
Far on the ringing plains of windy Troy.
I am a part of all that I have met;
Yet all experience is an arch wherethro'
Gleams that untravell'd world whose margin fades
For ever and forever when I move.
How dull it is to pause, to make an end,
To rust unburnish'd, not to shine in use!
As tho' to breathe were life! Life piled on life
Were all too little, and of one to me
Little remains: but every hour is saved
From that eternal silence, something more,
A bringer of new things; and vile it were
For some three suns to store and hoard myself,
And this gray spirit yearning in desire
To follow knowledge like a sinking star,
Beyond the utmost bound of human thought.
This is my son, mine own Telemachus,
To whom I leave the sceptre and the isle,—
Well-loved of me, discerning to fulfil
This labour, by slow prudence to make mild
A rugged people, and thro' soft degrees
Subdue them to the useful and the good.
Most blameless is he, centred in the sphere
Of common duties, decent not to fail
In offices of tenderness, and pay
Meet adoration to my household gods,
When I am gone. He works his work, I mine.
There lies the port; the vessel puffs her sail:
There gloom the dark, broad seas. My mariners,
Souls that have toil'd, and wrought, and thought with me—
That ever with a frolic welcome took
The thunder and the sunshine, and opposed
Free hearts, free foreheads—you and I are old;
Old age hath yet his honour and his toil;
Death closes all: but something ere the end,
Some work of noble note, may yet be done,
Not unbecoming men that strove with Gods.
The lights begin to twinkle from the rocks:
The long day wanes: the slow moon climbs: the deep
Moans round with many voices. Come, my friends,
'T is not too late to seek a newer world.
Push off, and sitting well in order smite
The sounding furrows; for my purpose holds
To sail beyond the sunset, and the baths
Of all the western stars, until I die.
It may be that the gulfs will wash us down:
It may be we shall touch the Happy Isles,
And see the great Achilles, whom we knew.
Tho' much is taken, much abides; and tho'
We are not now that strength which in old days
Moved earth and heaven, that which we are, we are;
One equal temper of heroic hearts,
Made weak by time and fate, but strong in will
To strive, to seek, to find, and not to yield.
Works Consulted:
Literature Network, The. "Lord Alfred Tennyson." (http://www.online-literature.com/tennyson/)
Literature Network, The. "Ulysses." (http://www.online-literature.com/tennyson/733/)
Everett, Glenn. "Alfred Lord Tennyson: A Brief Biography." The Victorian Web: 2004. (
http://www.victorianweb.org/authors/tennyson/tennybio.html)
Everett, Glenn. "Alfred Lord Tennyson Chronology." The Victorian Web: 2003. (
http://www.victorianweb.org/authors/tennyson/tennytl.html)
Carlone, Dominic. "Arthur Henry Hallam (1811-1833)." The Victorian Web: 2002. (
http://www.victorianweb.org/authors/hallam/chron.html)
Landow, George P. "Alfred Tennyson's "Ulysses"." The Victorian Web: 2013. (
http://www.victorianweb.org/authors/tennyson/ulysses.html)
Tennyson, Lord Alfred. McLuhan, H. M., ed. Works. Representative Poetry Online, University of Toronto. (
http://rpo.library.utoronto.ca/poems/ulysses)
Tennyson, Lord Alfred. "Ulysses." The Poetry Foundation. (http://www.poetryfoundation.org/poem/174659)